History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 44

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534

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of August a British fleet of sixty vessels, commanded by Admiral Cochrane, with a land foree of six thou- sand troops of all arms, under command of General Ross, was discovered in Chesapeake Bay, and moving

had been the subject of indignant negotiation since 1789. In 1796, Tim- othy Pickering, Secretary of State, a representative Federalist, had de- nounced the practice of search and impressment as the sacrifice of the rights of an independent nation, and lamented "the long and fruitless attempts" to correct it. In 1806 the merchants of Bostou had called upon the general government to "assert our rights and support the dig- nity of the United States ; " and the merchants of Salem had offered " to pledge their lives and properties" in support of necessary measures of redemption. Yet it shows the height of party feeling that when, in 1812, Mr. Madison's government finally went to war for these very rights, the measure met with the bitterest opposition from the whole Federalist party and from the commercial States generally. A good type of the Federalist opposition on this particular point is to be found in the pam- phlets of John Lowell.

John Lowell was the son of the eminent Massachusetts judge of that name ; he was a well-educated lawyer, who was president of the Massa- chusetts Agricultural Society, and wrote under the name of "A New England Farner." In spite of the protests offered hanif a dozen years before by his own neighbors, he declared the whole outcry against the impressment to be a device against Mr. Madison's party. The nation, he said, was "totally opposed to a war for the purpose of protecting British seamen against their own sovereign." The whole matter at issue, he declared, was "the protection of renegadoes and deserters from the British navy." He argued unflinchingly for the English right of search, called it a " consecrated" right, maintained that the allegiance of British subjects was perpetual, and that no residence in a foreign country could alsolve them. He held that every sailor boru in Great Britain, whether naturalized in America or not, should be absolutely excluded from American ships, and that until this was done the right to search American vessels and take such sailors out was the only restraint on the abuse. He was a man of great ability and public spirit, and yet he held views which now seem to have ignored all national self-respect. While such a man, with a large party behind him, took this position, it must simply be said that the American republic had not yet asserted itself to be a nation, Soon after the Revolution, when some one spoke of that contest to Franklin as the war for independence, he said, " Say rather the war of the Revolution ; the war for independence is yet to be fought." The war of 1812 was just the contest he described. To this excitement directed against the war the pulpit very largely contributed, the chief lever applied by the Federalist clergy being found in the atrocities of Napoleon. "The chieftain of Europe, drunk with blood, casts a look upon us; he raises his voice, more terrible than the midnight yell of savages at the doors of our forefathers." These melodramatic words are from a sermon, once famous, delivered by Rev. Daniel Parish, of Byfield, Mass., on Fast Day, 1810. Elsewhere he says : "Would yon estab- lish those in the first offices in the land who will poison the heart of your children with infidelity, who will harness them in the teaut of Ilollanders and Germans and Swiss and Italians to draw the triumphal car of Napoleon ? Are you nursing your sons to be dragged into his armies?" The climax was reached when one pulpit orator wound up his appeal by asking his audience if they were ready to wear wooden shoes, in allusion to the subots of the French peasants.

A curious aspect of all this vehemence was the firm conviction of the Federalists that they, themselves, were utterly free from all partisan feel- ing, and what they called the "Baleful Demon Party" existed only on the other side. For the Democrats to form Jacobin societies was an out- rage ; but the " Washington Benevolent Societies" of the Federalists were claimed to be utterly non-political, though they marched with ban- ners, held quarterly meetings and were all expected to vote one way. At one of their gatherings, in 1789, there was a company of "School buy Federalists," to the number of two hundred and fifty, uniformed in blue and white, and wearing Washington's Farewell Address in red morocco around their necks. It was a sight hardly to be paralleled in the most excited election of these days ; yet the Federalists stoutly maintained that there was nothing partisan about it. The other eide was partisan. They admired themselves for their width of view and their freedom from prejudice, and yet they were honestly convinced that the mild and cautious Madison, who would not have declared war with England un- less forced into it by others, was plotting to enslave his own nation for the benefit of France. The very names of their jamphlets show thie.

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THE WAR OF 1812 AND THE MEXICAN WAR.

towards the mouth of the Potomac River. General aların spread through the country, and a sense of insecurity was quickly felt at the capital city of the country.

One of John Lowell's bears on the title-page " Perpetual war the Policy of Mr. Madison. . . . The important and interesting subject of a conscript militia and an immense standing army of guards and spies under the name of a local volunteer corps." The Federalist leaders took distinctively the ground that they should refuse to obey a conscription law to raise troops for the conquest of Canada ; and when that very questionable measure failed by one vote in the Senate, the nation may have escaped a serious outbreak. Had the law passed and been enforced, William Sullivan ominously declared, "No doubt the citizens would have armed and might have marched, but not, it is believed, to Canada." This was possibly overstated, but the crisis thus arising might have been a formidable matter. It might, indeed, have been far more dangerous than the Hartford Convention of 1814, which was, after all, only a peace- able meeting of some two dozen honest men, with George Cabot at their head, - men of whom very few had even a covert purpose of dissolving the I'nion, but who were driven to something very near desperation hy the prostration of their commerce and the defenselessness of their coast. They found themselves between the terror of a conscription in New England and the ontrage of an invasion of Canada. They found the President calling, in his Message of November 4, 1812, for new and mysterious eractments against " corrupt and perfidious intercourse with the enemy, not amounting to treason," and they did not feel quite sure that this might not end in the guillotine or the lamp-post. They saw what were called " the horrors of Baltimore" in a mob where the blood of Revolutionary officers had been shed in that city under pretense of suppressing a newspaper. No one could tell whither these things were tending, and they could at least protest.

The protest will always be remarkable from the skill with which it turned against .Jefferson and Madison the dangerous States' rights doc- trines of their own injurious Virginia and Kentucky resolutions. The Federalist and Democratic parties had completely shifted ground ; and we can now soe that the Hartford Convention really strengthened the traditions of the I'nion by showing that the implied threat of secession was a game at which two could play, It must be remembered, too, in estimating the provocation which led to this famous convention, that during all this time the commercial States were most unreasonably treated. In the opinion of Judge Story, himself a moderate Republican and a member of Congress, "New England was expected, so far as the Republicans were concerned, to do everything and to have nothing. They were to obey, but not to be trusted." Their commerce, which had fur- nished so largely the supplies for the nation, was viewed by a great many not merely with indifference, but with real dislike. Jefferson, whose views had more infinence than those of any ten other men, still held to his narrow Virginia planter opinion that a natirmal commerce must somehow be an evil, and it was hard for those whose commerce his embargo had rained to be patient while he rubbed his hands and assured them that they would be much better off without any shipe. When the war of 1812 was declared the merchants of Boston and Salem had-as it was estimated by Mr. Isaac P. Davis, in the " Memoirs of Mre. Quincy "-twenty million dollars' worth of property on the sea and in British ports. The war sacrificed nearly all of it, and they were expected to be grateful. In a letter to the Legislature of New Hampshire, four years before (August, 1808), Jefferson hind calmly recommended to the people of that region to retire from the seas and "to provide for them- selves (ourselves) those comforts and conveniences of life for which it would be unwise ever to recur to other countries." Moreover, it was argued, the commercial States were almost exclusively the sufferers by the British intrusions upon American vessels, and if they did not think it a case for war, why should it be taken up by the States which were not hurt by it ?

Agnin, the commercial States had yielded to the general government the right of receiving customs duties and of national defense, on the express ground of receiving protection in return. Madison had pledged himself, as he was unce reminded in the once famous "Rockingham County (New Hampshire) Address," penned by young Daniel Webster, to give the nation a navy, and it had resulted in Mr. Jefferson's hundred and fifty little gun-boats and some twenty larger vessels. As for the army, it consisted at this time of about three thousand men all told. The ablest aren in the President's Cabinet, Gallatin and Pickering, were originally opposed to the war. The only member of that body who had

The invading army was apprised of the defenseless condition of the national capital and the character of the raw troops hastily mustered to protect it. The tempting prize was suggestive of certain victory before

any personal knowledge of military matters was Colonel James Monroe, Secretary of State, and it was subsequently thought that he knew just enough to be in the way. Nevertheless, the war was declared June 18, 1812,-declared reluctantly, hesitatingly, but at last courageously. Five days after the declaration the British "Orders in Council," which had partly caused it, were revoked, but the war went on. In the same autumn Madison was re-elected President, receiving one hundred and twenty-eight electoral votes against eighty-nine for De Witt Clinton, Elbridge Gerry, of Massachusetts, being chosen Vice-President, A suf- ficient popular verdict was thus given, and the war was continned. In its carly period much went wrong. British and Indians ravaged the northwestern frontier, General Hull invaded Canada in vain, and finally surrendered Detroit, Angust 15, 1812, in a way long considered pusillanimons, but now in some degree pardoned by public sentiment. Ile was condemned by court-martial, and sentenced to be shot, but was pardoned because of his Revolutionary services, and much has since been written in bis vindiention. To the surprise of every one, it was upon the sea, not the land, that the United States provedl eminently successful, and the victory of the "Constitution " over the " Guerriero" was the first of a long line of triumphs. The number of British war vessels captured during the three years of the war was fifty-six, with eight hundred and eighty cannon ; the number of American war vessels, twenty-five. with three hundred and fifty guns; and there were, besides these, thousands of merebant vessels taken on both sides by privateers. But these mere statistics tell nothing of the excitement of those picturesque victories which so long thrilled the heart of every American school-boy with the conviction that this nation was the peer of the prondest upon the seas. Yet the worst predictions of the Federalists did not exaggerate the in- jury done by the war to American commerce, and the highest expectations of the other party did no more than justice to the national prestige gained by the success of the American navy.

It is fairly to be remembered to the credit of the Federalists, however, that bat for their urgent appeals there would have been no navy, and that it was created by setting aside all Mr. Jefferson's pet theories of sea defense. The Federalists could justly urge, also, that the merchant service was the only nursery of seamen, and that with its destruction the race of American sailors would die out,-a prediction which the present day has almost seen fulfilled. But for the time being the glory of the Ameri- can navy was secure ; and even the sca-fights hardly equalled the fame of Perry's victory on Lake Erie, immortalized by two phrases, Law- rence's " Don't give up the ship," which Perry bore upon his flag, and Perry's own brief dispatch, "We have met the enemy and they are onrs." Side by side with this came Harrison's land victories over the Indians and English in the Northwest. Tecumseh, who held the rank of brigadier-general in the British army, had, with the aid of his brother, "the Prophet," united all the Indian tribes in a league. His power was, broken by Harrison in the battle of Tippecanoe (November 7, 1811), and finally destroyed in that of the Thames, in Canada (October 5, 1813,) where Tecumseh fell. But the war from the first yieldedl few glories to either side by land. The Americans were still a nation of woodsmen and sharp-shooters, but they had lost the art of war, and they had against them the veterans of Wellington and men who boasted-to Mrs. l'eter, of Washington-that they had not slept under a roof for seven years. Even with such men the raid on the city of Washington by General Russ was a bold thing, -to march with four thousand men sixty miles into an enemy's country, Imrn its capitol and retreat. Had the Ameri- cans renewed the tactics of Concord and Lexington, and fought from behind trees and under cover of brick walls, the British commander's losses might have been frightful ; but to risk a pitched battle was to leave themselves helpless when defeated. The ntter rout of the Ameri- cans at Bladensburg left Washington to fall like a ripe apple into the hands of General Ross. The accounts are still somewhat confused, but the British statement is that, before entering the city, General Ross sent in a flag of truce, meaning to levy a contribution, as from a conquered town, and the flag of trnce being fired upon the destruction of the town followed. Washington had then less than a thousand houses. The British troops set fire to the unfinished capitol with the library of Con- gress, to the treasury billings, the arsenal, and a few private dwellings. At the President's house-according to their own story, since doubted- they found dinner ready, devonred it, and then set the honse on tire.

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HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY.

the advance of the veteran force of General Ross, and the fleet was therefore hastened up the Potomac River to within easy marching distance of Washington City, where five thousand troops were disembarked and rapidly marched to the attack. Commodore Barney

Mr. Madison sent a messenger to his wife to bid her flee. She wrote to her sister ere going : "Our kind friend, Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure, and is in a very bad humor with me because I in- sist on waiting till the large picture of General Washington is secured and it requires to be unserewed from the wall." She finally secured it, and went off in her carriage with her sister, Mrs. Cutts, bearing the original parchment of the Declaration of Independence, which also owes its safety to her. The Federalist papers made plenty of fun of her re- treat, and Mr. Lossing has preserved a fragment of one of their ballads, in which she says to the President, in the style of John Gilpin,-

" Sister Cutts and Cutts and I, And futts's children three, Shall in the coach, and you shall ride On horseback after we."

But, on the whole, the lady of the Presidential " palace " carriedl off more laurels from Washington than most American men. The newsof the burning of Washington was variously received in England. The British Annual Register called it a "return to the times of barbarism," and the London Times saw in it, on the contrary, the disappearance of the Amer- ican republic, which it called by the withering name of an " association." " That ill-organized association is on the eve of dissolution, and the world is speedily to be delivered of the mischievous example of the exist- ence of a government founded on democratic rebellion." But the turn- ing had, on the contrary, just the opposite effect from this. After Wash- ington had fallen Baltimore seemed an easy prey. But there was a great rising of the prople ; the British army was beaten off, the affair turning largely on the gallant defense of Fort Mchenry by Colonel George Armistead, and General Ross was killed. It was at this time that Key's lyric, " The Star-spangled Banner," was written, the author being de- tained on board the British ship "Minden," during the bombardment. Before this there had been various depredations and skirmishes along the coast of Maine, and a courageous repulse of the British at Stoning- ton, Conn. Afterward came the well-fought battle of Lundy's Lane and the closing victory of New Orleans, fonght after the treaty of peace had been actually signed, and unexpectedly leaving the final laurels of the war in the hands of the Americans.

After this battle an English officer visiting the field saw within a few Inudred yards "nearly a thousand bodies, all arrayed in British uni- forms," and hrand from the American officer in command the statement that the American loss had consisted only of eight men killed and four- teen wommled. The loss of the English was nearly twenty-one hundred in killed and wounded, including two general officers, A triumph so overwhelming restored some feeling of military self-respect, sorely needed after the disasters at Washington. "There were," says the Federalist William Sullivan, "splendid processions, bonfires and illuminations, as though the independence of the country had been a second time achieved." Such, indeed, was the feeling, and with due reason. Frank- lin's war for independence was at an end. The battle took place January 8, 1815, but the treaty of peace had been signed at Ghent on the day before Christmas. The terms agreed upon said not one word about the impressment of British samen, but the question had been practically settled by the naval successes of the I'nited States ; and so great were the rejoicings on the return of peace that even this astounding omission seemed of secondary importance. The verdict of posterity upon the war of 1812 may be said to be this : that there were ample grounds for it and that it completed the work of the Revolution, aml yet that it was the immediate product of a few ambitions men whose aims and principles were not really so high as were those of many who opposed the war. The outrageous impressment of American seamen touched a point of national pride, and justly ; while the I'nited States submitted to this, it certainly could not be called an independent nation, and the almise was practically ended by the war, even though the treaty of peace was silent. On the other side the dread entertained of Napoleon by the Federalists was perfectly legitimate; aml this, too, time has confirmed. But this peril was really far less pressing than the other; the United States needed more to he liberated from the domineering attitude of England than from the remoter tyranny of Napoleon, and it was therefore neces- sary to reckon with England first.

was in command of the American flotilla designed for the defense of the capital, and occupied the Potomac River. This means of defense proved wholly inade- quate to cope with the powerfully armed fleet of the enemy, and was timely destroyed by the officer in command, who gallantly transferred his force to land, subsequently using several of his cannon with deadly effect against the foe. On the 24th of August the force under General Ross advanced, driving the American troops before them. Between seven and eight thousand militia, under command of General Winder, were in position on the heights of Bladens- burg. Commodore Barney had placed his battery on an eminence, from which he opened a deadly fire of shot and shell upon the advance of the British, con- fidently relying upon the support of the troops under General Winder. The untrained militia fled on both flanks before the steady march and effective volleys of General Ross' troops. The brave seamen and mariners stood by their guns until surrounded, losing heavily in killed and wounded, among the latter be- ing the heroic Barney, who, with his men and guns, was finally compelled to surrender. Their soldierly conduct won for them the admiration of their captors ; the private soldiers of the battery were treated with great consideration, and the commodore was paroled on the field of battle by General Ross as a mark of honor for his manly courage. The hasty and ill-ad- vised retreat of General Winder's troops left the capital city an easy prey to the Britsh. The advance of the enemy reached Capitol Hill in the afternoon, and demanded a ransom for the immunity of the gov- ernment buildings equal to their money value; upon this sum being paid the troops would retire, and no property should be destroyed. Compliance with this demand was impossible.

The civil authorities had hastily fled with the re- treating troops, and there was no one present or avail- able who was competent to enter into engagements satisfactory to the officer in command. The torch was applied to the costly edifices of the republic, to- gether with the president's mansion and a consider- able number of private dwellings. The navy-yard with its equipments, a large war-frigate in course of construction, and several small vessels were also de- stroyed. The public archives, library and all the works of art contained in the public buildings were lost in the midnight conflagration. The conduct of the American officers and troops on this occasion has always been declared discreditable, and in some measure invited the unparalleled act of vandalism of the British commander. Had the command of Gen- eral Winder exhibited but a tithe of the pluck of Barney and his marines, General Ross would have met reverse at Bladensburg, as he did at a later day near Baltimore. The naval foree co-operating with General Ross, under Commodore Gorden, took posses- sion of Alexandria on the 29th, and in order to save the city from fire and indiscriminating plunder, the

187

THE WAR OF 1812 AND THE MEXICAN WAR.

civil authorities induced the people to give up all supplies demanded by the invaders. A number of vessels lying at anchor at the wharves were seized and loaded with flour, tobacco, cotton, wines and sugars, of which at the time Alexandria was a grand depot, and the whole was carried down the river with the victorious squadron. The success of the invaders on the Potomac hastened further operations of the com- bined land and naval forces, then in undisputed oc- eupancy of the Chesapeake Bay. The city of Balti- more was the next objective point, having a fine har- bor to anchor their fleet, and a rich country west and north of it, from which supplies could be drawn in the event of a permanent occupation, contemplated dur- ing the ensuing winter.

UNIFORMED SOLDIER. 1812.

The loss of the capital had thoroughly aroused the country to a sense of danger, and in anticipation of an attack on Baltimore, every possible preparation, with the means at hand, was promptly made for its defense. What was of equal importance, the officers and troops assembled, among them some of those who were present at the assault on Washington, smarting under the severe criticism of the press, the country and indignation of the people, having re- solved that there should be no "bloodless retreat " from the city of Baltimore. The American forces amounted to nearly fifteen thousand men, with a full complement of artillery. The command was given to General Smith, of Maryland.

On the 1Ith of September the enemy, with a squadron of fifty-six vessels and six thousand men, entered the mouth of the Patapsco River, and on the following day landed the attacking force at North

Point, fourteen miles below the city. General Stricker, with three thousand five hundred militia troops, was directed to oppose their advance. This was most ef- fectively done, and it was while General Ross was making a personal reconnoisance, rendered necessary by the stubborn resistance of the Americans, that he was shot through the breast by a rifleman. He fell into the arms of his aide-de-camp, and died in a few minutes. He was succeeded by Colonel Brook, who brought up his reserve, and in turn forced the troops of General Stricker to retire to Washington Mills, a half-mile in advance of the main army. Both armies slept on their arms, and on the 13th the advance on the city began. While engaging the American troops, the enemy waited the attack of the naval force on Fort McHenry, commanded by Major Armistead, with a garrison of one thousand men. A storming-party of twelve hundred men were landed on the night of the 13th, and led to the assault of Fort McHenry. The attack was repulsed with great loss to the enemy, and the land forces were recalled, being pressed to the cover of the fleet by the troops of General Smith.

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History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, Part 44

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901 Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck Number of Pages: 1534

Author: Bean, Theodore Weber, 1833-1891, [from old catalog] ed; Buck, William J. (William Joseph), 1825-1901
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, Everts & Peck
Number of Pages: 1534